Guest Column: Part One of Two — Roane County's Industrial Effort

Wednesday

Nov 28, 2012 at 3:00 PM

One of our current five focus points (www.roanegov.org/countyexecutive) is Roane County's effort of Industrial Economic Development. We have a number of areas in which we direct our attention and resources and will outline our program later in this writing, but first we should explain our philosophy of Industrial Economic Development.

by Ron Woody

EDITOR'S NOTE: The following column was submitted to The Oak Ridger by Roane County's county executive, Ron Woody.

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One of our current five focus points (www.roanegov.org/countyexecutive) is Roane County's effort of Industrial Economic Development. We have a number of areas in which we direct our attention and resources and will outline our program later in this writing, but first we should explain our philosophy of Industrial Economic Development.

Governments, at least at the local level, do not create jobs. We COULD create jobs by raising taxes and then employing individuals; however, from an economic sense, we believe the local government should focus employment on servicing the public's needs not employing individuals to create jobs.

Thus your local government is not a job creator.

Since local governments do not create jobs, one might ask what is the local government's role in job creation or retention and why is industrial economic development one of your focus points?

First, economic development is a focus point because we believe it is of utmost importance to have employed citizens allowing the improvement in the standard of living or livability of our communities. Second, the local government role in economic development is to create or provide an environment, climate and opportunities in which companies will grow or would desire to locate in our county and/or region. To provide this environment and climate, we must have an understanding of what industries and businesses are needing to be successful and then we market to these industries and provide where possible resources.

One must understand that businesses and industries make decisions which they determine will be beneficial or profitable to the business, and their primary goal is increasing shareholder's wealth. Many businesses are also very civic minded and realize what is good for the community is also good for their business.

We are thankful that many, or should I say most, Roane County businesses also have the community and the local environment in which they also live as a goal to improve livability. As we understand this concept that a company's interest is doing what is best for the company, we provide resources to assist existing and potential businesses.

Within the following paragraphs we will reference a few resources and marketing tools we use in helping to create an environment in which not only the company would choose to move and live — but also the families of the organizations. In this article, we will not address the educational components provided by local schools.

We must sell Roane County on how we will make businesses successful. We ask the question another way: How does a local government help make a business successful, and how do we recruit and retain businesses? No different than a young boy or girl getting ready for their first date; they clean up and put on their best clothes, and Roane County does the same.

If we are entertaining a client, we want to look our best. As simple as sending our litter pickup crews to our industrial parks to clean up any debris, we will do it. We wish all of our citizens realized the cost of litter, either us having to pick it up or the loss of potential jobs due to us not being a presentable county; but this is a story for another day.

For 2013 Roane County will invest approximately $663,000 of the county's $94.4 million annual operating budget for industrial economic development. This cost doesn't include any debt repayment for the acquisition and development of industrial properties. The Roane Alliance will receive the bulk of these funds for the Industrial Board and Tourism operations.

The monies for the industrial economic development effort are earned from a small portion of the property tax, all of the hotel/motel and wholesale beer taxes and payments in lieu of taxes from two industries that are under tax abatement programs. Like most decisions in government, some think the investment is too great and some too small. This cash outlay pays for the marketing, recruitment and education opportunities of new and existing businesses along with our tourism effort of economic development.

The Roane Alliance is a consolidated effort established a number of years ago to eliminate three administrative functions of the Roane Tourism, Chamber of Commerce, and Industrial Development Board and to coordinate our recruitment and retention efforts. Roane County followed some counties in the Alliance formation and other counties have followed Roane County.

The Alliance performs many functions that assist in industrial and economic development that we aren't discussing in this article. Roane Executive Summary No. 7 (www.roanegov.org/countyexecutive) summarizes the Roane Alliance operating function.